


The Rest of Our Lives Would Have Fared Well

by Rebness



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen, Post-Felina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:39:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2104881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebness/pseuds/Rebness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse's mother reflects on the prodigal son who never returned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rest of Our Lives Would Have Fared Well

  
It's May 28th. All the days on the calendar leading up to this day have a line through them. Some, like May 4th (her little granddaughter's birthday) are circled in red, with the reason written in neat biro.

The 28th is circled, but she hasn't written the reason for it in the calendar. She never does, and Adam never asks.

He doesn't ask much about anything these days. Age has taken a greater toll on him than it has her, and angina and a couple of strokes have slowed him down. He eats simple meals and sleeps in the den a lot during the day. He's content with life as long as it doesn't throw up any surprises, and she's content to see him like that.

Jake visits every Sunday, trailing his wife and children after him. The quietness of the house is shattered with good, happy chatter and she takes pride in the meals she prepares for the family. But she is grateful for the silence which falls again after they leave, for she's old now and she appreciates her quiet time more and more.

May 28th.

She taps the red pen against the counter thoughtfully, contemplating the date. She's marked it off so many times, but this year is of special, pained significance:

It is twenty years to the day since she last saw her eldest son.

Jesse would be 45 now. _Could_ be 45, she corrects herself.

There are so many things she wishes she had said and done that last time she saw him. She dreams up scenarios where she slaps him, watches him reel from shock at her anger; she shakes him by the shoulders and tells him of the shame and notoriety that will rain down on the family in the aftermath of what he's about to do. She screams at him and tells him that he's won, Jake will be messed up for years after that and it's a horrid rebellious phase and therapy and many, many family meetings before he's off to university and finds himself on the right path again. In darker moments, she tells him to just leave, to die.

These thoughts have become more infrequent as she's aged. Time has softened her heart and as Jake has reached his thirties and worry lines have appeared in his face, Jesse has remained that ghostly youth left behind. She can't picture him any older; he's still that stubborn, waifish young man who brought her such heartache. She daydreams about crushing him to her, kissing him, protecting him. She never hugged him much after Jake was born; it wasn't out of cruelty; it was just the way their family were.

Tears gather in her eyes. She wipes at them, lets out a deep sigh. He was so _wanted_ _._ They had excitedly painted the nursery, bought him all manner of toys, blankets and cute clothing before he was born. And he'd been a delightful child, eager to please, musical, close to his mother. It is only with the wisdom age brings that she knows this, like all things, must end in sadness. But a parent does not expect to bury their child.

She didn't even have that small comfort. 

The sad and angry wife of that DEA agent had said he was working with him, they'd gone out to entrap Walter White. And then there'd been silence and she'd been visited by the cops (they had performed unnecessary, offensive searches of the family home) and six months had passed before the bodies of the two agents were found out in the desert. They'd been executed.

They never found Jesse's body.

She has tortured herself night after night, wondering if he is buried out there in an unmarked grave. She tries to block out the questions: would he have begged for his life? _Did_ he beg for his life? She's astounded by the cruelty of what was really going on, the underworld which was dissected by the media as the story of Heisenberg came to light. Jesse had always been appallingly naive; he would have been completely out of his depth. It's almost impossible to imagine him surviving, or any of those low-lives ever showing pity on him. It is agonizing to imagine her tender, self-destructive young son out there alone, never to have the dignity of a headstone and a proper Christian funeral.

But they never found his body. He _could be_ 45.

His room did not become a shrine to him -- Adam voiced his objections, strongly -- but she did keep the old chest with his things. It is still up there, right at the foot of the bed. She goes through it sometimes, but it makes her heart lurch and she puts the drawings and games and clothes back almost as soon as she unpacks them.

Jake had made an abortive attempt to find Jesse a few years back. There had been dreadful arguments amongst the family, then. He had said some terrible things as he railed against them, demanded answers. She had been gripped with fear and hope, and she wasn't sure if she hoped him dead or alive; she had lain awake at night fretting about what would happen if he were found.

Of course, nothing came of it. And here she is now, and it's been twenty years, and she knows she will go to her grave baffled and sad and angry. She knows that even if she goes peacefully, with fading eyesight she will look towards the door of the room she dies in and search for him, hope he will come through it with his childish anger and those piercing blue eyes he inherited from her, and tell her it's all right, he forgives her as she long ago forgave him.

She lifts the pen to the calendar and crosses a line through the date.


End file.
